Tangled humpback: Can rescuers save this whale?

Catching whales in fishing gear is a persistent problem for the fishing industry (and the whales!), but sustained efforts by conservation groups are helping.

|
REUTERS/Mike Hutchings/File
A humpback whale breaches off South Africa's Kwa-Zulu Natal South Coast, in this file photo taken July 9, 2004.

On Friday morning, a whale-watching vessel near Laguna Beach spotted an entangled humpback whale, caught in more than two hundred feet of line.

Rescuers affiliated with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) were able to remove 150 feet of rope from the whale, but the whale dove away almost as soon as the team had removed part of the line.

If the whale is spotted in the area again, NOAA experts hope to remove the rest of the fishing gear from its body. Much of the remaining rope is close to the humpback's mouth, making it hard for the whale to eat. About 100 feet of line is still trailing from the giant mammal, NOAA spokesman Jim Milbury told The Associated Press, creating drag and making it harder for the whale to swim and dive.

Getting caught in fishing gear, which the fishing industry calls "bycatch," afflicts more than ten different species of cetaceans, from the North Atlantic right whale to the more obscure – and highly endangered – vaquita, whose name means "little cow" in Spanish. Smaller whales, like porpoises and the vaquita, are at greater risk, since they are closer to the size of the swordfish and tuna that the fishing nets are designed to catch.

According to the Whale and Dolphin Conservation group, more than 300,000 whales, dolphins, and porpoises die as bycatch every year, either from drowning or from the injuries sustained while struggling to escape.

But those numbers are falling, thanks to sustained efforts over the past several decades. NOAA reports that bycatch deaths of dolphins have fallen more than 99 percent since the 1950s, largely due to the Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972, which required fishing companies to reduce their bycatch to "insignificant levels approaching zero."

The law required officials to fund scientific studies, place observers on fishing boats, inspect fishing gear, and investigate boat captains with high whale or dolphin mortality rates. By the end of the decade, dolphin deaths per year had plummeted from about 500,000 to about 20,000.

In addition, the Atlantic Large Whale Take Reduction Plan, to further reduce injuries and death from bycatch, took effect this year.

Efforts to improve humpback whale populations in and around US waters have met with some success. Central American and Western North Pacific whale populations were updated from endangered to threatened in April 2015.

"The return of the iconic humpback whale is an [Endangered Species Act] success story," said Eileen Sobeck, assistant NOAA administrator for fisheries.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Tangled humpback: Can rescuers save this whale?
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/2015/1031/Tangled-humpback-Can-rescuers-save-this-whale
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe